Here is what you’ve all been waiting for, the winners of The 2016 Arama! Japan Awards, selected by you, the readers of Arama! Japan! We had a great turnout for our second awards show, and the winners can be seen after the jump!

Comments

I’m just so sad that KAT-TUN’s award was a compilation album basically. I don’t know, I hope they figure out their situation. Arashi’s Fukkatsu LOVE deserves its’ awards okay, it’s so good.

Thomas

Congratz to Arashi for winning best anime, movie and video game!

Meryem Ben Brahim

Hhhhh the comment of the year 👍👍👏👏

maguro part deux

Winning Best Tarento has to be the highlight of Becky’s year. :-)

er

well she is the talk of the town for months

PigeonPop

Quite embarrassing to see FFXV be that close to Pokemon Sun/Moon for VGOTY to begin with, and then see the % gap drastically increase between iconic Pikachu and the FFXV cast (66.7% vs. 30.4% combined) for Best Character.

Dahliah Ghaniah

I cant take this award seriously… this awards should be “most popular” not “best”.. LOL!!

Kimi no Na wa deserves it and honestly best breakthrough is hoshino gen with nigeru he become popular actor , also his song koi got no 1 spot on oricon for months

MS

Agreed, best drama was the biggest surprise for me!

Kanjo Maru

It was a vote for best JE idol starring in a drama lets not kid ourselves nothing else mattered here.

cur

I didn’t expect the hoards of Kame fans voting and making him win.
Arashi voters might’ve gotten their votes split with 2 dramas in the same category.

Kameneko223

Yep arashi has 2 dramas in the list but they were for 2 different members. Jun fans and ohno fans will split ofc. And i voted for kame.

MS

Oh I don’t really follow the idol fandoms tbh so I had no idea – makes sense.

Ahmad Ridwan

yep. yamaneko was good, but pretty generic lol. nigehaji and hoshino gen won in a legit drama awards though

Historia Lenz

So sad my anime husbando Gintoki didn’t win :(

Ryusenkai

For those curious about why I picked [Alexandros] for my Staff Award, I’ve a short blurb on the subject:

While there are a number of acts that I could given this award to, and while they are not actually one of my overall favorites, I feel that it is worth acknowledging just how successful of a year [Alexandros] have had. Musically, they’ve taken notable strides to push their own unique style forward, without abandoning the sometimes crass, but always brutally honest lyrics that made them stand out in the first place. In some ways, there are two sides to [Alexandros]’ current sound: the loud, in your face rock that shows them really cut loose, best exemplified by tracks like “KAIJU” and “Buzz Off!”, and the polished, crisply produced approach taken with songs like “Feel like” and “NEW WALL”. Yet, what is perhaps most interesting is when these two styles meet and mix together, such as on the pop-influenced “AOYAMA” and the unrestrained yells that mark the chorus of full-English track “Nawe Nawe”.

2016 also saw the band achieve their first number one album with “EXIST!”, a record which exemplifies the kind of diversity which I lauded above. At the same time, I also wish to acknowledge the exceptional promotional campaign which accompanied the lead up to this album’s release. Promotion isn’t something which I imagine most of us stop to consider all that often, but it can sometimes be a key piece to a release’s overall success. [Alexandros]’ team went above and beyond by not only making use of more conventional promotional methods, such as music videos (of which there were three) and song tie-ins with commercials and dramas (as well as movies), but also less traditional means like extended radio lectures and one of the group’s members walking the runway at a fashion show.

Taken as a whole, [Alexandros] made the most of their 2016, and in my eyes that is something worth recognizing.

Liokt

Thanks for this! I’d love to hear what the other two members have to say about their respective choices too.

MS

Some feedback if I may: can we separate “Best Band / Group” into 2 different categories? I know the line can blur, but the same act winning best band (/group) and best idol act is a bit off IMO. Or maybe get rid of it entirely given most genres are catered for?

Great to see Cicada – Formula get a mention, I love that album along with Yasu – Orion.

Interesting note: Nakata (and Perfume) seem a lot more popular here than they normally do in the comments…

Minni

Clearly this site has a lot of Arashi Fans, even their Dramas and Movies won over others lol

lel

inb4 reee too many johnny’s

Historia Lenz

Arashi slaying! But “Are You Happy” for Best Album Cover again?! Seriously?!
Yay for Hikki! :)
I feel so bad about Buck-Tick not winning :(

TruthSpeaker

Very happy to know that Kaito Yamaneko has won Drama of the year award. It was the best drama i have watched in 2016 and also happy for it’s lead actor Kamenashi Kazuya who won Best actor in a drama award. Totally deserving …

club_banger

Oh wow, Kuu’s Live is in Top-5.

mamoswine1

Yamada ryosuke actor of the year; assassination classroom manga of the year; WTF so disgusting well it is just poll voting not an actual reality good thing there are legit winners

light

Lmao this happens every time, i just read the results for fun.
Arashi for best album cover? I liked that they were all smiles but the photoshop was terrible lol

byebicycle

i’m surprised arashi didn’t take the drama categories as well lol

cur

They have 2 dramas nominated so its a case of split voters.
Nigehaji should have won imo.

Kameneko223

The 2 dramas were for different members. Jun fans are different from ohno fans. Kaito yamaneko deserved to win as it has different story.

TruthSpeaker

KaitoYamaneko had an engaging story and kame has done really good job in that. I have watched nigehaji also but i found yamaneko the best.

hhhh

oh, no wonder they never bothered to release it until now

mongeri

Yeahhh for Arashi :) But I am really happy to see Kat-tun in the list!! I hope they see this as the fans’ wish to come back from their hiatus!!!

Dint

Do a burn review on Arashi you’d break the internet

Evan Misha

ARASHI DOES NOT ROCK – posted by ash

I’d click it.

Ash

I was thinking more “ARASHI ROCKS HARDER THAN ONE OK ROCK (but theyre still both softies)”

HyperMoot .

not bad but something like “Arashit sucks harder than One OK Rock Faggots” would have sent Aramad to unprecedented levels of clicks

I didn’t even vote Arashi for everything, only the major ones like best act, album, song, and DVD. Yet they still won so many? Arashians are so passionate. But I’m sad ’cause 99.9% Bengoshi didn’t get the award. Anyway, congrats to all the winners.

honey girl

ActOTY, AOTY, SOTY, MVOTY, Live DVD, Best Band/Group, Best Album Art, Best Idol Act, Best Idol Album, Best Idol Song – Arashi

that’s your opinion, some see things differently, I think it’s fine if you say you like it (AYH) better, matter of personal taste. “Was better” sounds factual, which is quite questionable

honey girl

…Please stop ruining stan wars sis.

HyperMoot .

just giving my opinion, any problem with that? Honestly there are real uglier comments to deal with here on Aramad.

cur

To me, AYH was better than Fantome despite me liking both albums. It was based on my taste subjectively. Objectively, looking at the number of dull filler songs in Fantome compared to only a couple of duds in AYH, numerically I concluded AYH as the better album.

honey girl

Spreading lies will not be tolerated.

Ash

If Fantome has won everything, you’d be mad at me right now. Well, madder than usual :-p

HyperMoot .

“If Fantôme HAD won everything, you’d be mad at me right now” HAD WOULD. Tsk tsk tsk, pisa: no! pizza: yes! Even conditionals and fantasy need some coherence, the only person in the world that doesn’t understand that is French movie director Luc Besson. How could Fantôme have won “Best movie” for example? There was a possibility with Electronica though. As all tracks -bar 3- are supposedly tied to bullshit drama, there’s room to claim a song like Ningyo is typical EDM.

Nikki ok

fukkatsu love was really a nice song plus the mv was nice too, I’ll never get the kaito yamaneko hype tho, that drama really sucked, same with nigehaji and the koi song, all of them are so overhyped and idek what for

Evan Misha

Suiyoubi no Campanella for Best Breakthrough Act 2017. Third time’s a charm

*votes for Kat-tun in many categories to show how successful they were*
*votes for Kat-tun for future phoenix*
*doesn’t get the irony*
Great job, guys.

J-Pop

Nishino Kana’s “Just LOVE” is probably her best album to date, I absolutely love every single song.

Hoshino Gen was a great surprise to me, although I still don’t know much about him. His albums still don’t mean much to me, but it’s clear he has his own sound.

Perfume presented good singles, most notably “FLASH”. As a big Perfume fan, I am disappointed at how their two most recent albums, “LEVEL3” and “COSMIC EXPLORER”, are mostly about the instrumentals, but at least they seem to be changing how much they edit their voices and their songs are more and more public friendly at a time they may disband sooner or later.

Nogizaka46 is surely the best idol group right now and Keyakizaka46 is starting with the same high quality as them. I love AKB48, but Nogizaka46 has better vocals in my opinion.

Amuro Namie releases great singles while on her tour and they did better than expected (I think only one of her four singles wasn’t for any event or movie) and hopefully she will release an album singing mostly in Japanese – both Japanese and non-Japanese fans would love that.

Can’t talk about much more ’cause I focused mostly on listening to albums from artists I didn’t know much from different years. Still, there are a few acts here on the list that I don’t get why people care that much about, but Japanese music is really diverse.

yacchaitai

So this is why you didn’t want to show us the results, I gotta admit I was happier before I saw these.

yacchaitai

I’ve seen people in vegetative state who have more brain activity than Johnny’s fans, I’ll just be an idiot yelling at carrots if I get mad about this again

HyperMoot .

lol, that’s rude but couldn’t help laughing, love the ” I’ll just be an idiot yelling at carrots” part, will use it some day, if you don’t mind.